New Deep
by Chamaeleon
Summary: It should have been end. But when Faye decided to save Spike, she never realized the consequences of her choice. Faced with blindness, hunted by syndicates and cops, it’s a new beginning and a new deep.
1. Guardian Angel

Disclaimer: Yeah, you know the drill. Not mine, lallalalaa, but I own 'this' plotline.  
  
A/N: This is my latest creation. I've been wanting to put this up for a while. This chapter is dedicated to all the readers out there, and particularly to "Funky Nassau" to giving me my inspiration back.

  
~@~@~@

New Deep

Prologue: Guardian Angel

  
~@~@~@  
  
You know, I used to be the back porch poet with a book of rhymes

Always open knowing all the time I'm probably  
Never gonna find the perfect rhyme  
For 'heavier things'

  
-New Deep  
  
~@~@~@   
  
I was there.  
  
He thought for sure he was alone and the end, that the only woman in the world who loved him abandoned him in her own death. Or maybe he knew all along about the little charade I put up for him- as much as I tried to, I never understood the man. Both the demons and the angels he hid behind his dual color eyes were creatures I glimpsed in sudden spurts that I was never entirely prepared for. He was among the few people who could really throw me off kilter. In the beginning, I hated him for it. In the end, he became addictive.  
  


Something about that explained why I was out there, putting my ass on the line one more time for that green-haired piece of crap.  
  
I knelt down, and despite sensing the fact he needed to be in a hospital as soon as possible, I pulled a smoke out and lit it up. A few seconds one way or the other were never enough to make a difference to the bastard, even with blood pooling around his ankles. Especially with blood pooling around his ankles; it seemed to be a constant status with him. Moving the cigarette to the side of my mouth, words began to leak from my mouth.  
  
"Guess who, Spike," I said, a touch sadly. "I bet you didn't know you had your own personal guardian fucking angel, did you? Asshole," I snarled at him, hands tender as I maneuvered him onto his back. I exhaled slowly, seeing the number of bullets that had cut careful little circles into his shirt. "Fuck you, Spike Spiegel," I whispered. "Make this harder on me, huh?"  
  
Wetness splattered on the back of my hand, the one clutching his sleeve, and suddenly I was reminded of a child trying to wake her parent, asking their deaf ears why they wouldn't wake up. A shaking hand reached up and touched damp cheeks. I muttered a curse, feeling the line of tears increase until they formed two twin rivers that dripped and mingled with the blood below me.  
  
"Shit," I cursed, split between whom to take my show of weakness out on- myself or 'him'.  
  
The sound of sirens approaching jerked my head up and out of the clouds. Pretty soon the cops would be all over this place, labeling it "yet another gross inter-gang fight." How many people would have the slightest clue about the modern day 'Romeo and Juliet' that only just concluded its final act?  
  
We couldn't be here when they arrived.  
  
"Fuck you, Spike Spiegel," I repeated, slinging one of his arms around my small shoulders, and pushed up with my legs, maximizing the muscles I'd developed from bounty hunting and pure exercise. "You and that goddamn angel." The man was impossibly heavy for a woman built like me, even with all the toning I did to maintain my shape. And the sirens were growing closer every second; I felt the first chill at the thought of failure. There was nothing else but to keep half-dragging, half-carrying the unconscious man out of the area.  
  
I gritted my teeth, and ground out, "You're only mortal, you know? I think you forget that when you see her." No need to mention who "she" was. Julia was the unspoken goddess of Spike's life, the point around which it all pivoted. "You saw fucking Heaven, didn't you?" I realized the arm around my shoulder was broken as it popped and crunched sickeningly. Weakness flooded through my limbs as my stomach flipped; gods, but the man could tear himself up.  
  
_Talk. Keep moving!_  I wanted to cry out, for him, for me, for Julia. I wanted to stop running, from everything. I wanted to sob out all the grief I had ever experienced in this life, the double burden I felt at not having been able to keep him safe. Keep him on the Bebop.  
  
"Heaven," I said, hiccupping slightly, "can't exist on earth. Fucking contradiction, dumbass. It either becomes hell or it flames out." I knew from experience. No one was kind or good in this universe; love and joy came with a price tag.  
  
How much would I have to pay?  
  


The wailing was getting ominously clearer. I could see my ship still sitting in the space I had carved out of the city with my lasers, drawing a crowd. I sighed: lucky me. Witnesses to attest to Faye Valentine's newest crime and latest addition to the already substantial bounty hanging over her neck like the guillotines of old. With regretful ease, I pulled my gun out and leveled it at a couple of young thugs rubbing their admiring hands all over my engine.  
  
"Hi, handsomes," I began, putting up the sultry (although flushed) mask I always put up for the world, "Would you like to put the hood down and get your hands out of my Redtail, or am I gonna have to shoot them off like I'm gonna do for this guy?" Watching their puzzled faces steadily, I flicked by wrist down, leveling the gun's nozzle behind me and pulled the trigger. The jerkoff trying to fiddle with the back guns gave a shriek and ran off, clutching his hand against his chest.  
  
That and the half-dead man hanging across my chest must have impressed them because after a couple of seconds I was in the air, the asshole draped across my lap, shouts of angry coppers hanging in my ears.


	2. Chapter 1

Disclaimer:  Once again… I, like millions of others, don't own nothing…

New Deep

Chapter 1: 

~@~@~@

_And even though the moment passed me by,_

_I still can't turn away._

_I saw the dreams you never thought you'd lose_

_Tossed along the way;_

_Letters that you never meant to send lost or thrown away._

_And now we're grown up orphans that never knew their names;_

_Don't belong to no one that's a shame._

_You could hide beside me maybe for a while_

_And I won't tell no one your name_

_I won't tell 'em your name_

_Scars are souvenirs you never lose_

_The past is never far_

_Did you lose yourself somewhere out there?_

-Name

~@~@~@

"Ma'am… Ma'am."

_Huh.  That's weird.  Who the hell calls _me_ "ma'am"? No one I know, that's for sure.  Oh well…_

_"Faye.  Faaaaye." _ He was calling me, whispering _my_ name on _his _lips.  Lips that curled upward just slightly, wide enough to let me know he was happy, thin enough to tell me he was keeping it inside.  Emotions were always kept for himself, like they were too fragile to be displayed to others in case of a mistake and they shattered them.  

"_Did I ever tell you how much I like your name, Faye?_"  He said softly, slowly.  Then he moved forward, closing the gap between our mouths.  _Oh shit_, I gasped mentally, melting so absolutely that I knew I was going to slip through his hands and collapse on the floor.

But I didn't.

The goddamn nurse cut in.

"What-the-fucking-goddamn-hell-this-better-be-fucking-good!" I leapt out of the hospital seat, still half asleep, and straight into the nurse herself.

We tumbled to the ground as if in slow motion, complete with time enough to catch the looks people threw us and to realize that my little yellow outfit was really not going to work in my favor this time.  

Indeed, it did not, although the tiny nurse's skirt helped the other woman even less.  Suffice to say, by the time we untangled our limbs (thankfully, she broke my fall), we were both red in the face, but the nurse was upset.

She attempted to collect herself, resetting her mini quickly and throwing glares at every patient who even appeared to take an interest in us.  With a glower, she snapped, "Your friend is out of the critical phase of his recovery and we're allowing you," she said it like her too-tight, too-short clothes were entirely my fault, "to visit him.  If you would, follow me."

Heels clacking loudly on the sterile floor, she swished off, nearly taking me out with one shoulder.  "Geez," I said under my breath.  "It's only your dignity…"

I lost track of our route as the realization of what I was approaching hit me.  

_Him_.

_"I'm not going to die.  I'm going to see if I was ever alive."_

Our footsteps took a turn; we darted around a bent woman riding in a wheelchair.

_…I wonder if I'm still dreaming._

I stopped a hair's breadth from crashing into the girl again, and stepped back quickly before she decided to stab me with a needle full of something dangerous.  "Here he is," she turned to me, pointing a hand to the door. "The amount of blood loss was particularly difficult, not to mention the sheer number of bullets we had to pull out."  I looked at her, hearing the pointed tone in her voice.  It was obvious she knew the kind of person inside the room, the kind of person she had aided.

Suddenly I hated her.  

_Like hell you know the kind of person that's in there.  _

"…-n you're done," she was saying, "There are a couple of men in Room 433C who have a couple of questions for you, if you wouldn't mind."

The way she said "questions" made my stomach flip.  "Excuse me?" I put a hand up, halting her flow of words.

She looked flustered and stopped, a frown percolating on her face.  "What?" She snapped, a full-fledged glare blossoming as I was silent, collecting my wits.  "You know, lady," she expelled haughtily, "I have a lot of other things that need tending to that are a lot more important than you at the moment, so excuse me while I-"  I grabbed her arm and hauled her backwards, slamming her into the wall.

"Hey," I barked.  "Hey!" I waved a hand in front of her dazed eyes.  Maybe I used a little too much force.  "Focus, honey.  Right here.  Look at me.  Look at my eyes."

She began to struggle weakly, but I seized both her hands and locked them in my grip while I turned her over, her face pressing into the cold wall.  "Let me go!  Oh my god! Oh god, let me go!"

"Shut up!"  I hissed in her ear, darting a look around the hallway which was thankfully empty.  Damn, but I always had a tendency to skid head-over-heels into these situations without thinking of who's around.  "Hey," I started, pulling my Glock out and pressing it against her back.  "Hold still.  That's a good girl.  Now.  Who are the guys with all the questions?"  I shook her. "Answer me!"

"I don't know!  I don't know," spilled out between teary sobs.  

I closed my eyes for a moment, wanting to slam her against the wall again and knock her unconscious.  I'd be saving humanity for a few hours from this weak dumbass.

"Come on! You must have heard.  Who are they?  Their _names!_"  

Feeling her beginning to struggle against me, I shoved the gun against her skin harder.  She fell still immediately.  "Please, oh god, please don't shoot me, I'm just a nurse!  I d-didn't mean to snap at y-you!" She blubbered, almost incomprehensible.

I sighed. "Damnit, you're fucking useless, aren't you?"  I asked, only half-serious as to want an answer.  "All right…" I was thinking fast, when the solution hit me.  I allowed a smug grin to grace my lips for a few seconds before I got to business, pleased as usual with my ability to think on my feet.  I could always improvise on the spot; it was a talent I'd possessed since I was young.  

…yeah.  Since I was young.

I was tempted to wander, to tread down the same well-worn path I walk on each and every night.  But I couldn't.  Not now.

After all.  Asshole needed me again.  And I'm a sucker like that.

~@~@~@ 

"Fuck this.  Fuck you.  Shit, but I need a smoke right now."  I groaned, privately cursing him with every foul word I had ever picked up.  Finally, hanging out with criminals and shady characters for years paid for something besides debt.

I couldn't help but smile slightly, however, somehow deeply satisfied that the nurse's clothes hung baggy on my body.  "Humph," I grunted approvingly.  "You need to lay off the chocolates, hon.  Getting a bit chunky round the waist."  The chest, though, was a bit of a tight fit.  I felt like I was about to burst, or send one of the buttons flying.  Well, it wasn't anything I couldn't handle.  

Guys seemed to like that type of that thing, anyway. _Most guys_, my mind amended, moving forward to the man in the adjoining room.

Fuck it. That wasn't the point.  

Pushing the unconscious nurse further into the storage closet and maneuvering a few janitorial items to delay her discovery, I poked my head out the door.  

"Hey, Utari-san, did you hear the rumor?"  With a jolt, I jerked back in, drawing the door with me as close to shut as I dared to and still hear.

"Huh?  What are you talking about Onru-chan?"

"I can't believe you haven't heard about it yet!" The high-pitched voice squealed enthusiastically.

"Well, whatever it is, I haven't."

"I _know_!  And I can't believe it!  It's just too hot not to hear."

"Some people actually do their jobs, instead of hanging around in the Nurse's Lounge, exchanging babble."

"Oh please.  Don't be jealous just because I get all the info around this joint.  Plus you gotta have _something_ to chew on to make this place workable."

"I still don't know why you're in Med School if you hate it so much."

A pause.  "Maybe it's for all the juicy gossip!  Like this little tidbit!  That I _can't_ believe you haven't heard."

"Well, you gonna tell me, Onru-chan, or _not_.  Otherwise, I have stuff to do before my shift is over.  Itari-san is such a bastard sometimes."

"Your supervisor?  Yeah, he is, isn't he.  I don't like him.  He yelled at me on my first day.  Can you believe that?"

"_Onru-chan."_

"Okay, okay!  Jeez.  I don't know why I even talk to you.  You're so anti-social… Here's the low down on that new patient we got in yesterday.  The one that looked like Swiss cheese?"

"Green-haired guy?  He's probably some punk gang member.  I don't know why the fuck we take them in."

"Yeah.  I would _so_ have slipped him some Ruthen when the doctor wasn't looking.  Guys like that don't deserve second chances."  My hands tightened around the doorknob, till in the corner of my eye I could see the whiteness of my bones through the skin.

"What's your point?"

"He's a killer!  He deserves to die- oh!  You meant about the rumor.  Right.  Well.  Horu-chan told me she had to show some really sketchy looking guys in.  They were asking her all these questions, about her and if the guy had woken up yet, if he said anything, if the doctor said anything '_interesting_.'  Just like that. '_Interesting.'"_

"So?  They were police, probably."

"That's the thing.  They weren't wearing uniforms, if they were really cops.  Don't cops always have to wear their uniforms?"

"Not if they're not there on business."

"Well, anyway, Horu-chan said that she saw they were carrying guns.  Every one of them.  In their suits.  'Cause that's what they were wearing- black suits, every one of them."

"So, what?  Can't people wear suits anymore?"

"That's not the point!  It was the same suit!  Not like when most people get together and they're all wearing something different, you know!  Like, same make, same model, same little red dragon on the slee-"

"Wait.  _What_ did you say?"

"Uh… same little red… dragon?"

"No… No…" The man was cursing low in one long string of breathy, fear-filled obscenities that made even my eyes shoot up.  If only I wasn't nearly incapacitated by the lead that filled by belly and polluted my system.  Oh god.  Red Dragons.  Here.  

Shit.  I hate it when I'm right.

I didn't listen to the rest of the conversation.  My ears stopped functioning.  In its place, my brain cells scrabbled around like mice in a spinning wheel, going round, round, round, over and over that same fact.  

Red Dragons. 

Here.

Damnit.  What was I waiting for?  The pair's voices dwindled into murmurs, and then silence passed over the hallway like the fist of Death.  I waited an extra second, pitting my ears against the whirring of the air vents, but there were no other voices.  So, I slipped out and shut and locked the door firmly.

"Sweet dreams.  You helped a lot."  She couldn't hear it, but maybe it would make waking up a little less bad for her.

I walked over and opened his door.


	3. Chapter 2

Disclaimer:  Me?  Own something? What-the-fuck-_ever_!!

New Deep

Chapter 2:

~@~@~@

_Do you remember what you said _

_When I said_

_"I hate you."?_

_…Neither can I._

_My heart was screaming _

_"I love you"_

_And I couldn't hear_

_Over the noise._

_­_-When We Fell In Love

~@~@~@

I forgot to breath.

I remembered again, later.  I must have, because after all, I didn't pass out on the floor.  But it was hard to remember- like I had buried my self in his self and when I had to pull myself out again, I was forced to relearn everything.  That's hard.  That hurts.

I couldn't see for what felt like eternity, because the lights were dimmed low.  He was the only one in the room, no roommate, or anything, which was great luck for me considering what I was about to do.  However, it only served to accentuate his condition, the aloneness, the situation at large.  

His breath was raspy in the dead room but nearly drowned out by the noise of the machines surrounding the bed like attentive children.  They beeped, they hummed, they pushed clear liquids into his body, but they seemed to fade to the background in comparison.  

Bandages covered his body to the point where he was closer in kin to a mummy than to the Spike that I knew.  I expected that.  I had expected him a bit battered, very bruised, with blood _everywhere_ in the typical style of a Spike Screw Up.

Weakness flooded me, I pressed a hand to my stomach.

I hadn't expected _this_.

For a moment I merely stood, stunned into a wailing oblivion by the seriousness of his injuries, before my eyes made their inevitable pilgrimage to his face-

Oh god.

His eyes.

Oh god, his eyes.

Oh god, they hadn't said anything about his eyes.

What had he said about them?  I mean the last time I looked into them.  Really, truly looked.  That time when I was scared and worried and jealous and god so scared more scared then I'd ever been in my entire life and he said-

He said, "_Look at my eyes, Faye. _

_"One of them is a fake because I lost it in an accident. Since then, I've been seeing the past in one eye and the present in the other. So, I thought I could only see patches of reality, never the whole picture. I felt like I was watching a dream I could never wake up from. _

_"Before I knew it, the dream was over."_

_For the first time in my life, I paid attention to something, I didn't merely listen.  Inside me, something woke up. _ How long, _I wondered, _have you been dying, Spike?  How long has it been since I've been alive?  Where does Limbo end?  I'll take Hell over this.  Fuck Heaven.  

Fuck Heaven.  And its angels.  __

_But my mouth didn't work. And somehow… when I looked into his eyes… it was with such finality._

"Damnit," I cried out softly.  

I didn't want to wake him up, if he could be woken up.  I was just glad that when he did wake up… he wouldn't ever be able to see me cry again.

~@~@~@

He was deeply unconscious to the point where I worried that he had slipped into a coma and the doctors hadn't disclosed it to me.  Nor was I sure whether it would be safe to take him off the breather or slide the IVs out of his veins, but the fact of the matter was he was a lot better off raw than stuck incapacitated while Red Dragons swooped down unheeded. So I made a decision, one of a billion in my life.  I like the feeling after deciding something- the sense that I'm controlling my destiny.  No one could take away the choices I made in my life because I was the only one who could make them.  

It was my judgment to sneak my hands under his sides, beneath his naked back, feeling the extent of his dressings- the thickness, the location- and heave him into the wheelchair next to the bed.  

Our little dance was about as graceful as the descent of a cow to the ground.

Nonetheless, we were eventually successful (I thanked any god in the vicinity he was clothed beneath the sheet), and after wrapping a paper-thin robe around his torso in part to hide the amount of blood brought to the surface by the movements, we were prepared to leave.

I paused a moment, readjusted the saggy clothes which were rumpled and twisted.  This whole time, I had managed to keep from looking at his face.  The bountiful bindings I could deal with because I was often on the other side of things, wrapping him up in them myself.  Not to mention the frequency I did that.  It seemed to me he was always walking around with a limp, or a bruised rib, or a strained muscle, or something that just _hurt_ and required my immediate attention and plenty of those neat white rolls.  

It was impossible to look at his face.  

So… I didn't. 

Exhaling a long breath I had been holding a long time, I moved to the door and pressed my ear against it.  No voices.  I turned the knob and let go, setting it free of the posts.  

Outside, the distant cacophony of hospital business floated like a whisper down the hall, but the immediate presence of armed men was missing.  With as little noise as possible, we made our way out, I making sure there was no slam by easing the door back with my heel.  Despite the fact I was absolutely clueless as to our whereabouts, I supremely sure.  No more reading magazines without reading them, no more waiting and biting my fingers till they bled, no more worrying about someone else fucking up.  

There was only me to fuck up.  And I could deal with that.

_Okay, Faye, okay.  Focus.  You have to get out of this deathtrap.  Keeping moving.  Just don't ever stop moving_.  Things I knew for sure:  I was on floor ten, along with other critical patients.  Spike was kept in room 322A, and this is…

This is…  I pulled over to the side, dipping my head down into my chest to hide my face from a doctor-ish man clasping a clipboard, followed by two other men who I didn't see as I dropped my eyes.  They were coming up from behind me, heavy footsteps swallowed by the encroaching noise of a waiting room- not my waiting room, I saw.  I caught a fragment of their conversation from just behind me.

"-man you're talking about, Spie-"

"We're asking you not to use that-"

"We told you no nam-"

Icy lightning shot up my spine.  My frantically working mind barely kept my body from shrieking and throwing itself over Spike to hide him, and directed my arms and legs to more worthwhile activities.  I clumsily fell to my knees beside the wheelchair and tugged at the bathrobe tangled around his lanky limbs, mentally panting with fear, hoping that my torso combined with the robe would cover his face from recognition if they looked at us.  

_-Oh god oh god oh god oh god where is my gun? in my holster is itloaded yesyes it'sloaded thank god thank god oh god oh god I'llputabullet through theirbrains oh god fuckyouspikespeigal ihateyou ihateyou ihateyou ihateyou ihateyou ihateyou ihateyou-_

"-apologiz-"

"-just…on with it, later we'll deal-"

"-want him released-"

"-seriously… critical- no way-"

"-who do you think you're-"

-_Ihateyouihateyouihateyouihateyouihateyouihateyouihateiloveyouihateyouihateyouihateyouihateyouihateyou-_

"-you'll… or we'll-"

"-don't fuck with-"

-_Ihateyou-_

"-very sorry- apolo-…again… please… little further… -released today if you wish-"

-Ihateyou-

Only when their voices dwindled away to nothing did I take my hands away from his face.  My fingers on his skin left red marks in the pattern of a fan on his cheek bones.  "I'm sorry," I whispered and leaned backward on my heels, before falling over on my butt.  The touch of death was disorienting.  To us mortals, at least; I've rarely seen him disoriented or unsettled.  In the beginning I assumed that was because he was simply somehow immune.  Later, I knew much better. 

From the floor, I could see we were next to door 454, which explained out run-in with the Dragons.  Room 433 was too close for comfort.  My arms were rubber when I tried to push myself up and I eventually surrendered and used the wheelchair as a crutch.  

"Okay," I spoke to him as if he was calmly sitting and listening to me.  He never did that. "Definitely heading in the wrong direction."  We made a 180 and I darted off as fast as I dared to go, juggling between the IV stand and the handlebars.  "We could really use an elevator,"  I murmured.  

My eyes stuck to each room number we passed like they possessed the gravity of Jupiter.

450.

448.

445.

443.

438.

435.

…434.

"Keep moving," I gritted between clenched teeth, forcing my head not to whip around like a frightened deer and peer into the lair of my hunters.  

_Oh god, just keep- don't-_

As if possessed by a will of its own, in a paralysis of horror, I could feel the muscles of my neck inevitable tensing, swinging around, chin, mouth, cheeks, eyes-

Eyes locked on eyes.

"Fuck," my mouth moved.

The third man of the Red Dragons blinked once and that was all it took before he was rushing for the door.


	4. Chapter 3

Disclaimer:  Me? Own something? What-the-fuck-_ever!_

New Deep

Chapter 3:

~@~@~@

_I think I'll find another way  
There's so much more to know  
I guess I'll die another day  
It's not my time to go  
  
For every sin, I'll have to pay  
I've come to work, I've come to play  
I think I'll find another way  
It's not my time to go_

_-_Die another Day

~@~@~@

_As if possessed by a will of its own, in a paralysis of horror, I could feel the muscles of my neck inevitably tensing, swinging around, chin, mouth, cheeks, eyes-_

_Eyes locked on eyes._

_"Fuck," my mouth moved._

_The third man of the Red Dragons blinked once and that was all it took before he was rushing for the door._

~@~@~@

My gun was out of its holster the instant I saw the man's twisted face, swinging out of the leather casing with a practiced move that only a certain type of people can manage.  The dangerous kind of people.  The people who don't mind shooting you as soon as meeting you.  I never aspired to be that kind of person, but Death always fell into my lap.  You can't just deal with death.  It's Him or you.  The odds are, sooner rather than later, it's _always_ Him.

That's why I'm a gambler.

The man's hand appeared on the doorframe and I counted- _one, two-_ and fired.  Just as the rest of the rat-faced man slithered around the door, the bullet was through the air and gore was everywhere- chunks of meaty human flesh, the usual rupture of blood.  In the confusion I watched him grip his shoulder and release a gut-churning scream, his eyes boring bleeding holes into mine as deep as the craters scarring the Moon.  

He raised his injured gun arm with a show of agony on his face and suddenly everything sped up.

I dropped my gun and watched it skid across the sterile hospital floor with an annoying squeal till it hit the opposite wall and rebounded.  By that time, I was already round the corner, wrapping my broken fingers around the handlebars of the wheelchair and swallowing my cry of pain in order to keep us moving forward.  Otherwise my legs would have given out beneath me the moment the bullet shattered the bones of my hand.  

"Get out of the fucking way!" I shouted, barreling down the hallway and sending patients and personnel scrabbling for distance.  I hated having my back to my enemy completely unarmed, but I didn't dare reach for the second gun I had strapped inside my shirt and leave the steering to my hurt and seriously bleeding one.  

"Fuck, this _hurts!"_ I grit out, tears falling from my eyes despite how hard I tried to keep them back.  

Then I saw it, silver, waiting, like the gates of heaven.  _Elevator._

_Almost there… Almost there._

The gunshots began.  

To my horror, an elderly man without a foot spurted blood and collapsed as easily as a downed deer; on the other side, a young girl went sprawling as silent as the deaths in the movies, her mouth open but soundless.  The shooter seemed to get his aim back and a bullet ripped a glancing blow through my shoulder- quick in, quick out- as if to pay me back for the one I gave him.  

The other two gunshots weren't as easily forgotten as the rest.  

In front of the elevator, the group of people dispersed like a herd of startled buffalo, cursing, yelling, crying, asking why.  

The door opened with a _ding_.

I crashed into wall and fumbled for the bottom floor's button before looking up in time to see the Red Dragon half-way down the hall stop and take a final aim. 

The doors closed slowly, shutting off the scene forever after I felt it burn on my memory.

_Bang_.

Gray doors stained red from my blood dented with the impact of the bullet and then….

And then I sunk to the floor feeling the life trail out of me and everything faded to black.

~@~@~@

_…You really messed yourself up, this time, Faye Valentine. _

_…You're dead, aren't you._

_…Dumb-fuck.  Nice.  Get yourself killed.  That was such a waste of life._

_… Especially your last little escapade.  The fuck were you thinking?  Red Dragons- three that you saw at least.  Bullets in your hand, your stomach, your leg and a nice graze on your shoulder.  Not to mention Asshole.  He was pretty fucked up too.  _

_And you thought you'd make it out alive.  You didn't even see the exit, did you?_

_I didn't think so._

_God._

_I hate you._

"Faye.  Wake up."

_Shut up.  Let me die in peace.  I deserve that at least._

"I can tell you're awake.  Stop playing at dramatics, woman!"

_Fuck off, Jet._

_Jet?_

My eyes snapped open and immediately I regretted the decision as bright light hit my face like a wet slap and I curled back into myself.  I regretted that action instantly too because of the searing pain that exploded in my body from the movement.  "Holy shit," I breathed weakly, unable to articulate beyond a gasp.

His deep voice came smartly from beside me, "Well what did you expect, Faye?  You messed yourself up real nice, after all.  It's not about to be a rosy parade.  I told you not to go do this.  He could take care of himself, I said.  Did you listen? Of course not," Jet babbled on, but I tuned it out as his face appeared in my vision.  The epitome of concern, he had a role of linen in his mouth and unwound it with a neat flick of his wrist before cutting it off with a kitchen knife.  He saw me watching him, and gave a sheepish shrug, "The First Aid scissors are missing."

"Jet.  How the hell did I get here?" I lifted my head up, having discerned I was in my bed, the pillows cushy beneath my neck.  "And why am I in the living room?" I asked dryly, seeing the television sitting at the end of our familiar table, the kitchen only a few feet away.

The man blushed slightly.  "You were rather noisy and I had to keep a constant eye on both of you so I couldn't just-"

My wandering eyes flashed over to his face again.  "The both of us?"

Jet rolled his eyes.  "You didn't think I was about to leave him there, did you?  Especially after you nearly got killed getting him out."

"What are you talking about?" I said shakily, hardly daring to probe further.  But I had to be sure.  I had to be sure it wasn't all a dream.

He sighed forcefully, "You just can't ever take my word for something, can you?  Fine," he huffed.  "Relax."  I felt his hands move tenderly beneath my neck, lifting my head up and turning it slightly to see across the room.

"Uuuh," I exhaled sharply, my breath taken away by the view.  

Unconscious, and more sallow-skinned than I recalled him being in the hospital, laid Spike with fresh bandages covering his shirtless torso.  His green hair had a cleaner, fluffier look to it as though it had been washed.  None of the blood I remembered spilling everywhere as I inadvertently opened up barely healed wounds with our unforgiving escape was evident.  The threadbare hospital pants had been exchanged for a pair of his own baggy sweatpants- the ones he only lazed around in after karate exercises or a successful mission.

And the dressings covering his eyes were new.

I looked away and Jet felt it and set me back down.  

The room fermented in silence for a while.  

Finally, when Jet spoke, his words carried the all the immutable force of an iron hammer.  "You know," he said, "It's okay now."

I opened my mouth for a derisive comment, but found it strangely blocked.  I managed a, "You think?"  But somehow, it came out pleading, like a daughter begging her father for reassurance instead of the vaguely arrogant, terribly independent veneer I liked to flaunt. 

"Yeah, actually," he said solidly, the rock I always knew he was, "I do think."

I regrouped, "Oh well, then if _you_ think so-"

"Shut up, Faye."

"Mm," I grunted, not really agreeing or disagreeing.  "How did you get us out of there, Jet?"

The small grin flipping his mouth up confirmed my suspicions.  "You're so sure it was me that did it, huh?"

"Yeah, actually," I mocked him.  Laughter escaped my lips as I watched him hold back another eye roll and settle for a few choice mutters.

He lifted the wrapping to my line of vision. "I need to re-do your stomach.  Hold still and for god's sake, don't shout and I'll tell you."  

I narrowed my eyes at him. "I never make any noise.  It's the other one that's the baby."

Answering me with a grunt, he disappeared from my view and I was left with the ceiling.  Out of nowhere I suddenly felt his hands, much further down than I though they should be.  I let out a yelp and tried to jerk my body out of his grasp, but he just tightened his fingers and favored me with a dry, "Please, Faye.  You think I'd be seeing something new.  Anyway, the wound is here," -he poked my lower side and agony flared its ugly head- "but I can't get to it without pulling some of your clothes away."

Too embarrassed to argue in the face of his cool (and reasonable, if I admitted it to myself) logic, I clamped my mouth shut and stop struggling.  

"Now," he began, as if nothing had happened, "I was at the comm., nearly frantic with worry over the both of you.  The _both_ of you; when the cop reports started flowing in.  Before Ed left she fixed up some of my old police frequencies and before I knew it, I was getting a minute-to-minute update of your tracks." I could feel his disapproving gaze as he continued, "Though everything became rather confusing after you downed the first couple of their ships.  Which I'm _sure_ will come back to you-"

I rolled my eyes, "You and your stupid karma."

"-in this life or the next.  Anyway.  After you lost them, I was relatively certain you'd be okay, though the forensic reports had me reconsidering Spike's condition."  His voice dropped an octave, full of unspoken emotion.  "It sounded bad.  Really bad."

My eyelids dropped close, "It _was_ bad… I don't want to talk about it."

"I understand," he said heavily, "you don't have to."  

He continued, tossing the old dressings away and wrapping the new ones, "Well.  Long story short, forty-eight hours later I haven't slept thanks to coffee, when I start to hear some interesting news coming in from a hospital.  They mentioned your names; I put two and two together and went down to drag your sorry ass out of trouble.

"It was a great thing to walk into, by the way," he said, tone souring into a deep bitterness.  "My two shipmates unconscious, most likely dead, their blood _everywhere_."  His fingers grazed the bare skin of my stomach and I felt their trembling.

I was quieted.

"I'm very sorry, Jet." 

He ripped the roll off with his teeth.  "It's okay," he conceded.  "Just… try not to do it again."  Gently, he taped the loose end down, and daintily worked at putting my clothes back in order.  "I had pulled out my old cop outfit and badge, and I just flashed the officials my credentials and … well.  Took you both into custody.  Not without a few tight twists with the locals, but…"

"But now," I concluded with a smirk, "with a few planets between us…" I let it hang.

He guffawed. "Exactly."

We slipped back into companionable silence, until, naturally, someone decided to break it again.  "I, uh. I inspected his eyes, Faye."

_No.  Don't say it._

"-and they're not gonna heal."

_…No._

"There's no…" He drifted into a dead end, but he collected his thoughts for another stab.  "If there had been a way to fix it… they would have already done so, you know what I mean?" He inhaled deeply.  "So, I think… when he gets conscious, we need to tell him right off the bat."

The irony roused me from my stupor.  "You mean you don't think he'll notice he can't see shit anymore?" I said cynically.

"Don't take this out on me, Faye," he snapped.  "He decided to go there; he has to deal with the consequences."

"I'll give you fucking consequences-" 

"Hey! What do you think you're doing!  I just finished with those dressings and I won't have you bleeding all over them just because of your damn temper!" He shouted, pushing me down, deliberately putting pressure on my injured shoulder.  I gave a small cry and fell back, inwardly furious.  "You'll stay there until you're healed damnit!  I don't care what you have to say about it!"  He seemed to be at the end of his rope with me.  He got up and tossed the remote in my lap, ignoring the wince as it bounce off my tender abdomen.  "You can watch this, but not too loud.  And no hysterics. Got me?"

"Hey Jet-chaaan, while you're up, why don't you grab me some ramen, eh?  Be a good boy for a friend in need, eh?"

I smiled, hearing his frustrated mutters as he stomped off into the kitchen.  "Now I get to be their goddamn slaves… should of just let 'em alone to die while I had the chance…"

As soon as he was out of the room, my head fell to the side, like a magnet.  

He was breathing.  I watched the slow rise and fall of his chest, and didn't hear Jet come back in.  

By that time I was already lulled asleep by the steady, reassuring rhythm.


	5. Chapter 4

Disclaimer:  Don't make me laugh.

A/N:  Hi there everyone!  I know I don't use this portion of the chapter much, and I have my own reasons, but I can't deny a reviewer their answer!!  By the way, everyone is _so_ great.  You wouldn't believe what those reviews do for me.  Here's a dirty little secret: sometimes after really bad days at school I just go read them and then I feel better and start running around like crazy.  Okay, that wasn't so dirty, and it wasn't really a secret, but my parent's expressions _are_ quite priceless.  ^-^  

Anyway, the point of the note… Night Skye Tears- the quote used in Chapter 2 is actually made up by yours truly… I hope it wasn't too awful or anything.  I write poetry a lot on the side, so I decided to throw that little tidbit in.  I thought it fit the chapter well.

Tee hee.  I love you reviewers.  I love answering you. I love the way you write me notes while I'm in class and whisper at me to procrastinate.  You give me bad grades and distractions and this terrible egomania that needs to be looked at. HEE HEE HEE!! *runs off… around the house… again…*

UPDATE 12-31-03:  Okay. Hi there, guys.  I just wanted to update this to explain about this chappie.  I'm terribly sorry about the format.  I haven't figured out how to fix it, and as you can see, all the other chapters are normal. If anyone has ANY ideas on how to fix this annoying little glitch, please let me know, either through e-mail, review, whatever.  For now, however, I humbly ask your pardon and suggest making the font bigger on this page (check the upper right corner of the site).  Thank you. 

New Deep

Chapter 4: 

~@~@~@
    
    Eyes wide open, I can't see 
    
    Eyes wide open, what you mean 
    
    Eyes wide open, I can't seem to be
    
    My eyes wide open, I can't see 
    
    Eyes wide open, what you mean 
    
    Eyes wide open, I can't seem to be
    
    Eyes wide open
    
    -Goo Goo Dolls

~@~@~@

_The bullets pierced my body one by one, puckering the skin and then snapping it, blowing a hole the width of my thumb where they entered.  Blood that had been flowing as peaceful as a forest stream exploded violently outward, through the new, unnatural orifices. Only then, as pain began, as the lead slugs bit through the tissue-thin layering of organs, splintering bones, digging a new windpipe to my lungs, did I cry out._

_But the gasp was short because even then was the air whistling out around my ribs like a thief through castle gates._

_My lips, chapped with the newness of death, continued to move, contorting into a rictus of pain.  I wasn't even aware of what I was trying to say, only that it was terribly important. My head was swimming.  I'd never felt death this close before.  Even on the edge, even running the line of the cliff, I'd never felt this close.  Because this time, there was no way out._

_And he was just standing there, this expression on his face that I would never be able to describe to anyone because I had no idea what it meant, except that it meant that he was standing there, watching me fall in slow-motion.  Watching me die when he needed to live.  _

_And all I could see in my last moments was the color green wrapping itself around him like a cloak, like it was who he was supposed to be, and the aura of  yellow as my hand stretched out to him.  His eyes were wide open, perfect, clear, full of all that hidden emotion I would pry and scream and claw to get even a hint of. Right now, though, it was all plain in his elegant, masterly created eyes, being offered up to me freely.  _How sweet_, I thought sardonically and longed to land him one of those scathing remarks we both were fond of.  Longing to start one of those layered, I-hate-you-I-love-you fights, exquisitely attentive on the other's reactions, gauging each other like no one else could.   _

_And now, I was pulled by his beautiful dual-toned eyes.  One real.  One fake.  One for the present.  One for the past._

_And for the future… nothing._

_Oh god._

_"Keep… running… Spike!"  _

_Oh god._

_~@~@~@_

_I was drifting, floating endlessly in a void of darkness.  It went on forever and I could neither move nor find anything solid to latch onto._

I'm here.

_Green, brown, the touch of a lightest blue seen only in the birth of morning._

Hold on, Faye.  I'm here.

_I couldn't hold on.  I couldn't.  There was nothing here to grasp.  Nothing to cling to. I was going to fall.  No.  Not fall, because there was nothing to fall from.  I was only going to linger, trapped in an agony between living and dying, suspended without a touchstone._

Faye.  Open your eyes, Faye. 

_I don't have eyes.  I can't, I scream silently, I can't._

Faye.  Hold on.  I'm here.

Let me help you.

_Blue returns like a lover's caress.  And then brown, as though it had always been there._

_Last, last… bittersweet and last is the green._

Lente, lente o duclis nox... lente, lente.

_I open my eyes._

_~@~@~@_

Plunging my face into the ice-cold water filling the sink, I cleared the sweat out of my pores but found once again I simply couldn't clear my mind of the night's dream.  I braced my face inches above the water, contemplating submersing it like I'd seen Spike do when he had hangovers, but the idea was simply too inelegant to entertain.

I leaned over to pick up the towel and dry my face off gingerly, the wounds barely healed and raw as a horse's ass.  Jet had protested furiously when I started getting up and moving around a week ago, absolutely positive I would only open the injuries again.  And I would have proven him wrong.  I would have.  If only for my stupid temper.  

Hmph.

The point was, a week later I was finally up and about, moving around cautiously but more and more as the days went by.

As the days went by.

I rubbed the soft yellow towel over my face, scrubbing hard get the sleep out of my face.  The little sleep that I _was_ getting; the past three weeks had seen me wide-eyed, staring at the ceiling with my dreams contending for the most horrific, the most violent, the most frightening place in my brain.  They were not the same each night, but nearly so.

Rougher than I meant to I grabbed my toothbrush and smashed our crusty toothpaste over the bristles.  Soon my mouth was as full of lather as a rabid dog and I spit, alternating inspecting and admiring my pearly teeth.  It was my private joke to think that few people could reach my age and keep their teeth as sparkling as mine.  Laughing one of those secret, desolate laughs, I reached for my makeup.  

It was really only out of habit that I continued wearing it.  There was no real reason to.  I certainly wasn't going to be bounty hunting any time soon, nor did I have anybody to impress. But I couldn't bring myself to look as wretched on the outside as I felt on the inside.  

He… was still unconscious. 

Jet crashed his fist against he door. "Oi! Faye!  Get your scrawny ass the hell out of there!  You take _forever_!"

I pressed a fist to my heart, demanding it to beat again. For a moment, I had heard his voice on the other side of the door, crossly yelling at me like he did every morning.  

Flinging the door open in Jet's face, almost breaking his nose, if he hadn't had good reflexes, I sauntered out, the remaining clean towel slung over my shoulder.  "It's all yours," I said, feigning agreeability though secretly pleased at using all the hot water as well as the last of the shampoo.  He surprised me by snatching hold of the towel and yanking it out of my hands.  

"I'll be needing that," he said wryly, and slammed the door.  "The water's on the stove," he called tonelessly.  I winced.  We should clean his wounds and wrap new bandages on every day; at least that's what Jet had said.  He generally knew more about these types of things than I did, but whenever he mentioned it, I saw what he was trying to hide behind his eyes.

He'd lost hope.

_-Bullet holes, long jagged rips I knew would scar, bruises that_ just wouldn't heal, _the sickening give of certain bones, sudden coughs and more blood against his lips, twisting, turning, nightmares without escape, groans as new places were reopened, insensible fevered whisperings…_

_The tremble of my hand against his cheek._

"I inspected his eyes, Faye… -and they're not gonna heal."

_Dark night, I was tempted to tape my eyes to keep them open.  I didn't want to close my eyes and see the nightmares.  I wanted to keep them open, on his face, watching him, watching him, watching him-_

"Faye… You can stop now." Jet said carefully in the morning.

"What do you mean?"

He looked at me painfully. "…Nothing."

_And night again, confused with day, because it was all the same, all filled with the same face, the same motions, the same bruises and wounds, the same aching-_

_-I just can't give it up-_

"Jet, can you hit a store today and pick up some thread and antiseptic?"

Silence.

"Fine.  _I'll_ do it."

_-I just can't give him up-_

"Spike, Spike, you're killing her."  Jet's words.  

_-He's not going to wake-_

"…rumor of Red Dragons, up and alive again, been asking around 'bout some things…"

_-I just can't give it up-_

You're eyes are always bound in the morning.

_I've been dead inside-_

"Ow!" I jerked away from the pot and popped burnt fingers in my mouth.  _Damnit_.  How stupid could I be to pick up the water without gloves?  "Great start to the morning," I muttered grimly, sliding my hands into the fish-shaped potholders Jet vehemently denied buying, and picked up the linen rolls with a free pinkie.  We were getting low on our stock of First Aid and our cash.  Not a good combination when one had become an absolute necessity.

"Maybe I could be a little stingy on the bandages today… he wouldn't mind," I smirked to myself, wondering what caustic retort Spike would come up with if he was awake.  Something suitably dry and scathing.  

Something like-

"Faye.  I can't see."

~@~@~@

_You're dreaming again._

That was the first thing that came to my mind.

But he was there, sitting up, fingers clumsily touching his face, pausing each time they reached the binding I'd wrapped around his eyes like they were afraid to move any further.  He was still there when I closed my eyes and opened them again. He was still there when I felt the pot slip from my fingers and violently crash to the floor, scalding water rushing everywhere.  

I heard him speak once more.

"Faye… Faye… I can't see."

I couldn't speak.  This was a dream.  I knew, Jet knew.  Spike would never wake up.  

"Faye?  Faye!" He said it like I was the only thing he knew.

My knees hit the floor, the world whirling.  He was standing up, but he couldn't balance and I saw him grimace at the pain.  "Faye!" He called, "_Faye_!"

He stumbled, tripped at the table and collapsed on hands and knees.  "Faye… where are you?  I- I can't see- I can't-"

I leaned back, against the wall, limp and lifeless.  He went forward, on his hands and knees until he touched the water and inhaled shakily, but kept moving.  "Faye?  Where-"

His searching hands touched my foot and stopped for a moment. Then he kept moving forward until I raised my hand and placed it against his white-striped chest to stop him.  

For a second, all I could feel was the rapid pound of his heart against my palm like wild animal, frightened, trying to get free.

"Spike…" 

"I- I can't…"

"You're blind."


	6. Chapter 5

Disclaimers... humph, fine.  _Break_ a girl's heart.

A/N:  Good... grief... This chapter required precisely FOUR rewrites.  _Four_.  And that was scrapping entire chapter-length scripts... *sob*...  _unbelievable..._

Soooo!!  Keep your eyes open, people! Teh heh.  Things are a little fishy on the Bebop.

Ocelot- No WAY am I giving up such an important plot point!! MWA HAHAH!!

~@~@~@

New Deep

Chapter 5 

~@~@~@

_These wounds won't seem to heal  
This pain is just too real  
There's just too much that time cannot erase_

_When you cried I'd wipe away all of your tears_

_  
When you'd scream I'd fight away all of your fears  
I held your hand through all of these years  
But you still have  
All of me_

-My Immortal

~@~@~@

_My toes passed the edge of the cliff, and I stared ahead, unaware of the murky jade of the sea, roiling with white crests and depths that changed to the blackest of any night seen above shore. Jagged rocks pushed out of the ocean like straining fingers, sometimes submerged in the writhing body of emerald, sometimes rising above its prison.  I inched forward and the screams of tumbling pebbles were devoured by the roar of the unchained beast below.  _

_I was blind.  I could not see the trap._

_I believed I wore wings strapped to my shoulders.  _

_I believed I could fly._

_So I stepped forward into the empty air…_

"You're blind."

_…and I fell._

~@~@~@

"Where am I?"  It came from his lips harsh, like an old scab ripped off by careless fingers.

My hand dropped from his chest like it turned the skin of my fingers to ashes.  "The Bebop.  You're on the Bebop."

Something indescribable came over his face and altered it. Inside me, I felt an emotion I could only vaguely identify as fear begin to grow. "Where am I?" he repeated, wincing at the pain of speaking from broken cheekbones. 

"I told you.  The Bebop." _Keep the tremor out of your voice._

"Where's Vicious?"

"Dead." _Don't stop breathing._

"Li?"

"Dead." _Don't look at him._

"Julia?"

"Dead." _Please.  Stop._

His hands, with all the gentleness of a sakura blossom, fluttered across my face, as if to learn my features by touch.  "Faye Valentine?" he whispered.

I closed my eyes.  "Alive.  I'm alive."

The next question surprised me, perhaps because his hands were cleverly playing decoy through my hair so that when they touched the wall and bunched, I was completely ambushed.

"Spike Spiegel?"

_"What_?" I went rigid.

He pressed his forehead against my own.  "I… don't…. _believe_ you…"  He drew each word out, like they all had some separate meaning.  My mind wheeled.

"I don't believe you." He repeated it, face contorting. 

I closed my mouth, gaping at him like the clubbed fish I felt like.  "Spike, what are you- you're_-_"

He reared a fist back and brought it crashing next to my cheek, sending my hair fanning upward with the speed of his blow.  "Shut up! Shut the fuck up!"

"Spike, stop it!"

His other fist mirrored the first, sending a jolt through me, from both the closeness of the blow and the tremor of the silver wall itself.  I was sure he was leaving crater-like dents.  "Where am I?  Where _am I?"_

"The Bebop- you're_- listen to me_-"

"_Shut up, I don't fucking believe you!! _What happened to me, why can't I-"

"-you're fucking- blind, I-"

"-_you fucking liar!"_

Slam, slam.  

His fists crunched into the metal grayness that comprised Bebop's walls like they would break down the blackness that restricted his world.  He beat and pounded and slammed and his words poured over me and my violet hair was swept up in his chaos and scarlet blood ruptured through the skin of his knuckles and _flared,_ spackling the white skin of my cheeks. 

…I sat there…

… And took it.

I took it… because I wondered how he could control his fists so that they never ever touched my body.  

Because I wondered if I could deal with death and rebirth and _death and rebirth_ like him.

Because… if they could have, would his eyes have had tears in them?

…When he slowed and then stopped, his bleeding hands now like his bleeding body, his arms collapsed to my shoulders.  He felt my flinch: I saw it in his misshapen face.  His body was curved, crumpled, rolled inward with an untouchable desolation.  It lent a sense of seclusion- our bodies, bent together, cocooned in the natural disintegration of our confusion and despair.  He was shaking and bleeding and pathetic and spent and the last thing holding him up was my shoulders.  I let go of the fear that had not actually been building inside me, and I locked my arms around his back.

That was the final straw for him, and he crumbled into my body.  

I dragged him closer, his head tucking instinctively in the crook of my neck, the heaviness of his breath discovered by the skin there.

We were silent for a moment- he entirely exhausted; I entirely defeated. 

Then I felt his body shake, tremors wracking through his chest and arms like small earthquakes on the larger-than-life man.  He turned his nose into my throat and it was wet and cold.  

"Spike, are you..." I trailed off, shocked and wordless. 

His voice was thick.  "I'm _not_," he denied, even as his arms pulled tighter around my waist, drawing me closer so that with each hitching breath I was confused as to whether it was mine or his.  

I was subdued, slightly awed to be in the presence of such an outpouring of emotion from him.  "Yes you are," I said softly- so softly I barely heard it.  

He shook his head, "I don't cry."  He was wrapped around me so tightly I thought I'd never get loose.  It was strange, it was frightening.  It was such a pure admission of need, when Spike was a man who never needed anything.  In my lifetime, I've never felt that wanted, and somehow, no matter how I tried to convince my heart, I didn't think he'd act like this to Jet.  

He was so thin.  He was always skinny and lean, but now his ribs stuck out at odd angles, cutting into my arms.  I'd never been in so much contact with him at once.  Of course there were the fleeting glances of skin on skin as we passed each other cigarettes or guns, yet... right now, his chest... pushed against mine each time he inhaled.

I was forgetting to breathe as I simply _felt, unable to move past the timeless moment.  But, as if to remind me of whom I was and who he was, I felt blood creep across my forearm and I was jerked into the present.  "Oh fuck, Spike!" I groaned, and unwound my arms from his back like lightning. With the loss of support, he slumped further against me and I feared he was skirting unconsciousness again.  "You're bleeding all over the place, you lunkhead.  Shit. Oh, shit."_

"No I'm... not..." He muttered, fading in and out as his limbs went slack.  

Fear trickled through my veins and I laid him down on the floor, positive that to lift him would only split the injuries further open.  He moaned when his back touched the cold surface; I slipped a hand behind his head to ease it down.  "Um, stay there! I'll be right back!"

I dashed over to the table, scooping all the First Aid tools into red stained arms, and ran back to him.  Landing heavily on my knees, I dumped everything next to him, hands flying to his chest where the flow was the fastest.  Immediately, I grabbed the scissors and sliced through the bandages, and set to peeling them off him.  

"Fucking hell," he whispered, arching up as scabs tore off in the process.  

Calm as possible, I pressed down on his shoulder, "You have to relax or you'll make this harder on yourself when I start stitching them up." 

His hand came up, latching onto my wrist with almost painful force when I ripped the rest of the wraps off.  "What- do you... mean?" He gasped out.  "Stitching them- arrgh!"

I bit my lip.  "Shit!  Hold still, idiot!" I spat at him, only half-aware, focused on closing the gap in his crimson skin.  "And let go of my hand!"  For the first time in his life he listened to me, his hand falling to the floor boneless.  I hardly noticed, only aware that I had my hand back, and used it to pinch the wound closed, the other one making quick work with the thread.  I darted from wound to wound with a professional composure surgeons would be proud of, and within moments I was finished with him.  The amount of practice I had gained while he was unconscious gave me a skill with First Aid that was almost ridiculous.  

I collapsed onto my butt with a hefty sigh and caught my head with my messy hands.  "You really know how to mess yourself up," I said tiredly, the adrenaline high rolling out of my body like the tide.  

His breath was shallow, his skin pale.  "Is it that bad?"

"Oh, not really, I suppose.  Considering you've soaked not only yourself but _me_ with your own blood," I rolled my eyes.  

He chose to ignore me.  "Where did I get hurt?"

I threw him an incredulous glare he naturally couldn't see.  "You mean you can't just... tell where it hurts?"

"Everything hurts," he said tonelessly. 

Sobered, I lightly touched his injuries, my fingers little butterflies.  "This was a shallow cut, but this one was much deeper. This one looked like a bullet hole, or something- same as the ones here, here, and here.  That's a rib- broken, I think it was."  My hands moved upwards, and hesitated before brushing across his cheek.  "The bone was snapped."  A finger slid down his nose.  "You always break your nose."  I sat back before realizing what I had missed; he was still waiting.  "I don't know... what happened to, to..." I meant to just touch his temple, indicating his eyes, but of its own accord my hand came to rest on his forehead, brushing back his slightly damp hair before jumping up, like it was scalded.

"You must know, I mean, you were there and you ought to remember right, I didn't think that," I babbled on to cover the embarrassment of my action. "You couldn't possibly, because, it wasn't like-"

"Is that all of them?" He asked, cutting off my tirade.  

I inhaled, thankful he didn't say anything. "Mostly.  There are some on your back too."

He seemed to switch to a separate conversation.  "I don't know how that happened."

I stopped, confused by what he meant, before comprehension dawned on me, stunning me into wordlessness. _His eyes.  "You must."  __Something like that would be hard to forget._

He shook his head. "I remember the fight _perfectly.  But I don't remember... getting even __half of my injuries."_


End file.
